Trees

“Dad, maybe some day we’ll have a technology to remove all that excess carbon dioxide from the air”.  Reply: “We have that.  It’s been here for millions of years.  It’s called a Tree. “

The father was Costa Rica’s Minister of the Environment.  He told this story to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.  He was invited, as a successful practitioner of the art, to coach world leaders in the practice of his specialty: Reforestation.  All the people in the very large room had arrived by personal private jet.  What he told them was that Costa Rica had been down to 30% forest, was now 50%, and would be 70%.

We jump to another venue, the conservatory room at Montavia Estate.  The speaker is talking to just 2 people, the owners.  She is a realtor.  Her company has a website that passionately advocates reforestation.  Her company invites people to save a forest, which is why we called her.  We saved a forest, but now someone else needs to take over stewardship.

She tells us that forests degrade property value because they block the view.  From a real estate perspective the single strongest point in favor of a high selling price is the view.  What is a property owner to do if they are cursed by stewardship of a forest?   Reforestation policy in C.R. prohibits cutting down forests, even if the trees themselves are not rare.

What Costa Ricans do is kill the trees.  They have ways to do that which we won’t mention so that we don’t give people ideas.   The forest dies. 

Someone is coaching Costa Ricans on how to murder forests for financial gain.  That someone is going to be a realtor, or a lawyer, or a neighbor.  This practice is a direct threat to Costa Rica’s reforestation goal.  But in fact, in the face of such tragedy the government looks the other way.

By some calculations, global forests are over-cut by 40%.  Forests add oxygen and water to the atmosphere.  Both of these crucial components are declining at an alarming rate.  What replaces the forests is often effectively dead land, something we call desertification.  During our decade at Montavia Estate the forest biomass doubled.  Something very good happened because we got out of the way and let nature express itself.  Now it is your turn.